Hello again! My name is Shelby Dufton and I am currently completing my Master’s degree at the University of Lethbridge. This will be my fourth summer at the
Beaverlodge Research Farm. I am very excited to be back for the second field season of
my project.
I’ve been away in Lethbridge for the last 8 months processing some of the data I collected in 2016, completing my coursework, and giving presentations. The bulk of my winter work has been to identify the beetles I collected from my plot trial last summer. In total, we collected approximately 8,200 beetles, over half of which were ground beetles. This is great to see observe because many ground beetles are known to be predators of insect pests. This includes the pest insect that my project focuses on, the wheat midge. If you’d like to learn more about ground beetles or wheat midge
click here and
here.
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| Figure 1. Shelby visits AAFC-Saskatoon in March 2017. |
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| Figure 2. Shelby taking a break somewhere in Alberta. |
